Comes Marching Home
by happilyinsane13
Summary: He had finally succumbed. Not to battle or glory or anything grand and great like she always thought he would. Of all the things to fight and lose against it had been old age. Zutara.


He had finally succumbed.

Not to battle or glory or anything grand and great like she always thought he would.

Of all the things to fight and lose against it had been old age. Former Fire Lord Zuko had finally let it take him to the Spirit World where all her other friends resided. Like the others it hadn't been beautiful or peaceful. It was a night full of struggle as he tried to breathe, as she tried her best to heal the last man who was her kindred spirit, someone who understood her.

Although she didn't want to admit it, she feels like she failed him. That she wasn't as strong as she used to be and that she let him slip away in that small room in the inn he had stopped in three weeks ago. The Earth Kingdom was in the early bouts of Spring, and the cool night air, which would've soothed him before, made him shiver in his final moments.

"Katara," he choked out.

She shook her head, trying to silently beg him not to speak.

He persisted, as he always did.

"Take care… Iroh…" he coughed. She wiped spittle and blood from his cheek. "The Fire Lady… My daughter, she'll know… nothing big…"

Katara bended some more water out of the earthen clay pot from his bedside table. It glowed around her hands as she settled it on his chest to soothe him.

"I'll keep it simple," she said softly.

She thought he tried to smile, but his withered face was overcome with a painful grimace.

"I've only had you to myself ten years," she said. "No matter how long I feel the Spirit World takes everyone away from me too soon."

"And look… what I've… been doing…" he tried to speak, but she hushed him. She knew what he was going to say.

_Look what I've been doing when I should've been with you. Traveling the world while you stayed in a land of frozen ice. What have I done for you, even beyond these ten years? _

Katara did not care for regrets.

"You know I wouldn't have you any other way," she mumbled in his ear as she bended down to move her hand to his fevered face.

In his weakness, his vulnerability, he actually let this soothe him. He died two hours later.

She had no more tears left, but she cursed herself. She knew she could have lengthened his life if she had used bloodbending, but she herself had declared it illegal. She had out of moral responsibility. Or was it fear? Weakness?

She didn't know anymore.

She quickly went downstairs to the find the closest telegraph.

She had to send a message out before his body started to decay.

His funeral was a simple as his daughter could keep it. He had been Fire Lord, after all. There was only so much she could do.

They kept the general public out, appeasing them with the ability to lay white lilies against the ceremonial grave outside the palace grounds. It bared his name, but no body laid underneath. Officials from the four nations and Republic City were present, as well as close family and friends when his body was burned on that great pyre in the Fire Nation under the cherry blossom trees.

She hated the lingering smell of burned flesh and flowers, making her weak body feel sick. Afterwards Tenzin and Bumi supported her, taking her away with Kya close behind.

"It'll be okay, mother," Tenzin told her. "He's with father now."

"Uncle Sokka is probably already making him laugh, or sick, however you want to look at it," Bumi said, more calmly than usual.

Kya nodded solemnly.

Three hours later Katara was sitting alone at a bench near Zuko's favorite turtle-duck pond. She could almost see him there, his long white hair on spread against the grass he fed the creatures gently with his wrinkled hands, his scar crinkling with a smile.

The illusion was broken when she was approached by his daughter and General Iroh. She carried an urn in her hands, solemn and stern in all her beauty.

"Mother-in-law," she said and bowed.

Katara tried to get up to return the gesture but Iroh came forward and said, "Grandmother, please don't strain yourself."

Zuko's daughter had always been proud with her head held high in the face of adversity. Yet Katara knew she had always had a certain vulnerability when it came to her father, seeking his approval on everything. Unlike Zuko's father before him, Zuko had showered her with the love and affection he had never received.

Even though her appearance, which had shocked Katara as the girl had grown, was the spitting image of Azula she persevered in the steps of her father.

Katara studied her as she fought to keep a straight face. In traditional Fire Nation style she got to her knees before her mother-in-law and bowed her entire front, stretching her hands out with the plain, black urn that held her father's ashes.

"As my mother-in-law, as well as my step-mother, I present you with the ashes of former Fire Lord Zuko, your husband and the one who is bond to you in eternal fire,"

Katara cocked her head, while Iroh watched, clenching his paternal grandmother's hand.

"You do not have to bow to me," Katara said softly. "And I do not have the right to take his ashes. They should be laid beside your mother's,"

Katara's daughter-in-law shook her head, keeping her head bowed.

"Father wanted you… wanted you to have it," Katara thought she heard a hitch in her voice. "He said… when you first got married, if he died, you'd know what to do."

Katara, with help from Iroh, got down on her knees to hold her daughter-in-law as he hands shook, weeping for the first time.

The urn's shaking in between them seemed to hold the gravity of their grief.

* * *

Katara traveled. Each step of the way someone in her life would accompany her as she sought to put Zuko to rest. She was too old to travel on her own now, though she would never say it.

Bumi and her daughter-in-law accompanied her to Zuko's first wife's grave. She took a handful of his ashes and sprinkled them across the seemingly empty ground. Katara knew her daughter-in-law wouldn't say it, but she was grateful.

Tenzin, Pema, and the children accompanied her to Air Temple Island. She sprinkled another handful across the temple steps.

"He was so proud when this island was built," she told Tenzin. "I think he felt, finally, his ancestors sins could be forgiven."

She took his ashes to Republic City, a place they had all put their life into. Korra accompanied her with her friends by her side. Yet instead of taking the ashes to Zuko's own statue, she spread them at the step of Toph's. Katara knew Lin Beifong was watching out the window.

"Why here, Sifu?" Korra asked curiously, cocking her head to the side.

Katara managed a tiny smile.

"I think he'd like to hear Toph call him Sparky," she said.

Korra didn't understand.

Kya helped Katara across the frozen plains of the South Pole. She took a path from her hut across the snow and ice to the spot on the ocean harbor where he had first appeared on his iron ship, and where she had set Sokka's body off to sea.

"Why do I feel Uncle Sokka is making a joke right now." Kya mumbled.

Katara wanted to pretend that the wind that blew was Sokka's laughter, but it just felt cold and bitter.

The Earth Kingdom was last and General Iroh, her grandson, accompanied her on the last leg of her mission. She reached a vibrant, old tree at the very edge of Ba Sing Se. Kneeling down, Iroh assisting her, she poured the rest of the ashes at this sacred spot.

"This was an important place for your namesake," she told him. "He would sing a song, I never knew the full reason why… but I think I remember it…"

_Leaves from the vine,_

_ Falling so slow,_

_ Like fragile, tiny shells,_

_ Drifting in the foam,_

_ Little Soldier boy,_

_ Come marching home,_

She couldn't continue, overcome by painful stabs in her chest and the tears that wouldn't stop falling. Iroh gripped her soldiers, holding her steady as he finished for her, sobbing into her soldier.

_Brave Soldier boy,_

_ Comes marching home_.

* * *

**A/N: I kept Zuko's daughter nameless because I didn't want to risk labeling her with a name. I don't know, it didn't feel right. Same with Zuko's first wife. Until I know for sure who he got married to, I'm not going to label her either. **

**And in my universe, Zuko and Katara got married as widowers, and were happy together for 10 years.**


End file.
